


The Prefecture's Secret Sin

by iberiandoctor (Jehane)



Category: Les Misérables (TV 2018)
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Branding, Centaur Valjean, Centaurs, Leather Bridle, Multi, Other, Paris Era, Public Sex, Remix, Undercover Missions, Whipping, casefic, centaur sex, criminals, gangbangs, in captivity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29278866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: Javert sends Jean Valjean on an undercover mission for the Prefecture. But how can this centaur and former convict truly be trusted, especially to turn against others of his kind?
Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean, Jean Valjean/Original Male Character, Jean Valjean/Patron-Minette
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20
Collections: Valvert Monster Remix





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Silver Centaur](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479375) by [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel). 



> Thanks to Prinz for the consult! CW for branding, BDSM, gangbangs, noncon.

Valjean hadn't come to the evening’s covert meeting at the mixed café near the Rue de Pontose. Inspector Javert had been waiting for an hour and a half; his rage, usually a dull simmer beneath his neatly-pressed uniform, had fanned itself into a flame. 

He ought never to have agreed to work with Valjean in the first place. After all, he had known — ever since he’d set eyes on those hot, sullen glare, the chestnut body scarred by ropes and harness of Toulon, all those years ago — that this hardened criminal could never be trusted. 

Still, when Jean Valjean, recidivist and fraudster, recaptured and condemned to a lifetime’s imprisonment, had begged for the opportunity to redeem himself, Vidocq had seen potential in the man, and Javert had allowed himself to be convinced — by his superior, and also by Valjean’s surrender in the stables of the Prefecture of Police in Paris. Unwillingly, he remembered the convict’s subjugation to Javert’s cuffs and authority, the way he’d trembled and submitted when Javert had stroked him, and opened him, and brought him to trembling orgasm. 

Javert clenched his fist, fiercely driving the memory from his mind. Valjean’s surrender had all been an _act_.

Still. _Still_. Valjean had kept the act up long enough, spending weeks with Carmagnolet’s enterprise, long enough to have gained Carmagnolet’s trust, and to arrange a first meeting with Javert in this very café, where he had submitted his report with as much alacrity and diligence as any undercover police spy. 

Prefect Delevau had believed the new opiates introduced to Paris in the past year — with fatal consequences, including for the nephew of the duke of Artois — were some fiendish plot of the English, but Vidocq had suspected a source closer to home. Javert’s trail had led to Carmagnolet’s centaur stronghold at the Bois de Bercy. At their first meeting, Valjean had confirmed that Sieur Carmagnolet, who according the Prefecture’s records was a respected elector and business owner, had been tending illicit opiates in secret herbariums in Bercy, which he had purveyed into a criminal drug operation in the heart of the Salpêtrière.

Valjean had hesitated before adding another piece of information. It was rumoured that Carmagnolet was not merely selling drugs to humans, he also arranged for centaurs to service those who would spare no expense to enjoy sexual perversions of the kind still forbidden under the Code Pénal.

“Although I have not personally witnessed any such activities, nor have I been permitted into the inner herbarium,” Valjean had taken pains to explain, adding, “Still, I believe Carmagnolet is starting to trust me. He likes ex-cons; most of his men served in Toulon and Bicêtre. On our next run to the Salpêtrière, he says he’ll let me be part of his personal guard.”

“How did you get him to trust you?” Javert asked. 

When Valjean entered the café, Javert had immediately seen that his agent was wearing a new brand on his flank, a mark only half-hidden under Valjean’s thick silver coat. Undoubtedly this ritual had been a required symbol of entry into Carmagnolet’s circle, but it had stirred an instinctive proprietorial rage within Javert all the same.

Valjean did not meet Javert’s eyes. “I don’t wish to discuss it,” he said. “I will let you know when the next run is planned, and the Sûreté can capture the gang red-handed.”

Javert set aside the immediate fierce keenness for battle; he had his orders from Vidocq. “No. You are to embed yourself further into the gang’s activities. Go with Carmagnolet on the first run; it will be the second run when we move in.”

Now Valjean looked at Javert, his dark eyes widening in dismay. “It has been weeks. How much longer must I continue in this pretence? Every day that I am in Bercy, working in the factory and sleeping in the salle with the others, I am at risk of being uncovered!”

Javert set aside the image of Valjean’s uneasy slumber in Carmagnolet’s stables alongside other hardened criminals, in much the same way as he had slept as a prisoner in the salles of Toulon. Firmly, he said, “Nonsense. You will not be uncovered. You told me you would do what was needed: you said _’None are as strong as I am. Or as experienced. Or indeed, as willing.’_ ” 

Javert found his throat was dry, and he had to swallow. “Then you let me do what I did to you, and you insisted that I trust you, and I _have_. Don’t let me regret my decision again.”

It was now Valjean’s turn to swallow. Javert watched the man’s throat work, and then that proud head bent low in concession.

“Very well, Inspector. I will do as you command; I will stay at my post, regardless of what happens to me.”

Javert said, gruffly, “See that nothing happens to you,” and they made arrangements to meet a second time.

But when the appointed hour arrived — in the heat of the afternoon, when horse-men were sluggish and at their least alert — Valjean did not come.

Javert waited for another hour in his chosen corner, and then another, until it was evening. He then returned to the station-house, seething, but also with an undercurrent of concern. Had Valjean truly become compromised, as he had feared? How could they now best preserve their design against Carmagnolet and his criminal enterprise? 

“We should send someone in, sir, to find out what’s really going on,” Rivette agreed, when Javert mentioned the impasse to his deputy. “I don’t think the Prefecture has other centaur agents on its books, but I recall the Sûreté has several. Let me pay a visit to the Rue Petite-Sainte-Anne and see who’s available.” 

“No!” The word had already left Javert’s mouth before he was himself aware he had uttered it. “No,” Javert repeated, calming himself with some effort. “There will be no need for that. I will go myself.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jean Valjean had been very careful. He knew Cosette was depending on him, as well as some of the other centaurs here, half-drugged and in need of rescue. Yet, despite the many precautions he had taken, he had still been caught. 

Most of the centaurs who sought employ with Sieur Carmagnolet were young, having come to the Paris from the plains in the West and North to make their fortunes. On arrival, they would soon discover that Parisian society, notwithstanding the changes wrought by the Napoleonic Code, was still reluctant to engage horse-men in honest work, and there was no occupation for unschooled youngsters, save for the crude labour which could be done by cart horses, or for pulling a gentleman’s carriage. Older centaurs, of course, preferred to give human cities and towns a wide berth, as Valjean would have done himself, had he not been compelled to visit Faverolles in search of sustenance for his sister’s ailing foal, and been captured and tried under the laws of the Ancien Regime.

As Valjean’s long-dead father had explained to him, in the ancient world, where horse-men once roamed free across all of the continent, there had been no laws save that of the open plains — subjugate or serve; dominate or die. Wild horses and lesser creatures obeyed them; primitive men learned to steer clear. Then humans discovered iron, and gunpowder, they came with shackles and men-made laws, and the bands of proud, freedom-loving centaurs found themselves conquered.

Valjean discovered first-hand how the Napoleonic Code had ended the decree permitting wild centaurs to be hunted and caught, and put to work in Toulon and similar places. The Emperor gave centaurs their freedom and the right to own property, on condition that they adhered to the laws of men.

The race of centaurs was a largely peaceable one: quick to anger, but also swift to forgive, valuing pride and freedom, their self-indulgent pleasures, their long-lived loves and the few children produced by their largely unfruitful line. They were by and large content to live in an uneasy truce with humans who had once hunted them for sport — though there were insurrectionists, who wished to restore the supremacy of beasts that existed in the centuries before kings and the Revolution. And then there were some, like Carmagnolet and his gang, who ruled the plains which adjoined the Salpêtrière and the primordial forests of Bercy, who sought out crime and debauchery, who delighted in harming others, centaurs and humans alike.

It was for this reason that Valjean had come: this, and because otherwise he would not have been permitted to retrieve poor Cosette, the human daughter of his heart. He had allowed himself to be an instrument of laws which had previously treated him with injustice, in order to stop greater crimes from being committed by the likes of Carmagnolet and his gang.

Carmagnolet had not flourished in his criminal activities by trusting easily. Valjean had had to demonstrate his bonafides: by his prison lineage, by his uncommon strength, and by his willingness to suffer the brand of the new master to whom he had pretended to pledge fealty.

“Do we need to tie you down?” Carmagnolet’s second-in-command had asked him, roughly, as the others made the hot iron ready. 

“No,” Valjean had said, stoutly, and Poussagrive had looked dubiously over at him.

“If you forget yourself and kick me, old-timer, it will go very badly with you. Well, then, hold still —!” and there was the shock of bright, searing pain into the flesh of his left flank. 

Valjean had cried out involuntarily, and only managed to restrain himself by pressing his forearm against his mouth. The hurt was immense, the smell of burning horseflesh filling the yard; worse, Valjean was in that moment returned to the galleys of Toulon, where he had been permanently marked as a criminal, where he had wept for the loss of his freedom and the loss of his family, whom he would never see again.

He had, then, thought the memory of his first branding would be the worst thing he would have to endure in proving his cover story. He’d been wrong.

“Good man,” Poussagrive had said, tautly. He ran possessive hands over Valjean’s trembling haunches. “Looks like we may not need to tie you for the next part.”

“I’d tie him anyway,” the large piebald half-stallion called Barrecarrosse grumbled as he removed his tunic and leather apron and his weapons-belt. “He might be old, but he’s strong; you saw how much load he could carry. If he strikes me while I try to mount ‘im, I might never sire a foal again.” 

Slowly, Valjean realised he was surrounded by half-a-dozen other horse-men, who had similarly divested themselves of their gear and protective clothing and were stamping their hooves impatiently.

Poussagrive fixed Valjean with a steady eye. “Are you going to submit to us?” he asked, quietly. “You can choose to leave now: no harm done, no pride lost. But if you want to join us, you need to submit to the needs of the clan.” 

He nudged Valjean in the shoulder. “And what the clan needs is for you to please us. All of us.”

When Valjean realised what the bay meant, he bowed his head in despair. An ex-convict, he was, of course, no stranger to such abuses; in Toulon, the guards had reached inside his hole and brought him to his peak again and again against his will, as a means of control and subjugation. When he had submitted to Javert’s handling decades later, he had told the inspector that no human hand had touched him with kindness. 

But if he had thought those of his own kind would treat him more gently, he soon found out how wrong he was.

Those of Carmagnolet’s inner circle surrounded him; two stripped him brusquely and held his arms behind his back, while the others took their turns mounting him, spreading him mercilessly and driving into him on their hind legs, splitting him open with thick, angry pricks that seemed able to go on for ever. When Valjean’s own legs finally gave way and he half-swooned in the muck of the stables, they continued in their assault, rubbing against him and making him pleasure them with his mouth until they were satiated, until they had covered his bare skin and coat with their warm seed and had filled him in every orifice. 

After it was over, Poussagrive helped him to stand, and rubbed him down roughly with a turnout blanket.

“You did that well,” the deputy said, briskly. “The chief will be impressed.”

And Carmagnolet had been; enough to ask Valjean to accompany him on a brief foray into the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, and, later, on a more involved mission to treat with the notorious Patron-Minette gang, the human thieves who terrorised the Salpêtrière.

“You’re pretty strong for an old-timer,” the jet-black half-stallion commented, swatting Valjean’s haunches with an air of propriety that set Valjean’s teeth on edge. “And an ex-con like you will know what’s what when dealing with human criminals like Brujon and his fellows.”

Valjean knew all too well what underhanded deceits criminals could deploy, for he was at that very moment deploying them himself in the name of the Prefecture. He was afraid he wasn’t very good at it; during these long weeks he had lived under Carmagnolet’s roof, and eaten his meat, and worked in his gardens, he had been deathly afraid his secret would be discovered. 

His fear was not just that Cosette would be left without a father to care for her, but also for those young centaurs of Carmagnolet’s gang, who still wept over their branding scars and their initiation experiences —they clearly wished they could leave the gang, but lacked the courage. Then there were the rumours of centaurs whom Carmagnolet loaned out as sex slaves to paying customers, who would be in even more dire need of rescue.

Valjean’s first thought, when Barrecarrosse and Mardisoir and two of the others seized him from his bed in the early dawn, hauled him down the stairs of the eastern wing of Carmagnolet’s private residence, and flung him into a dimly-lit underground chamber, was that he might be brought face to face with those sex slaves at last. But he was not so lucky: the iron-barred cells were empty, and he was their only inhabitant.

“Why have you brought me here? I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Mardisoir snorted. “Seems one of the Patron-Minette said they recognised you from the other night’s meet, said you might be a police spy. The Prefecture are always sniffing about the place. The boss has his doubts, he wants you under lock and key so he can keep an eye on you.”

Valjean knew it was hopeless to fight; his life, and his mission, depended on him being able to convince Carmagnolet of his innocence. He struggled to remain calm as the centaurs wrestled him into the iron shackles bolted into the cell floor, and then chained his arms above his head. “You all know me, I’m no spy. We wear the same brand, we’ve fought on the same side.”

Barrecarrose rose, wiping the dirt from Valjean’s hooves off his hands and grimacing in distaste. “Pish, you’re nothing like us. You think you’re too good for us, don’t you? I’ve seen you looking at us as if you were a schoolteacher, or a judge.”

Mardisoir had mounted a small barrel in order to secure Valjean’s wrist chains to a ceiling truss; he jerked the chains taut, and Valjean gasped with pain. “Chief says we can to do our worst to you, until you confess.”

The exultant cruelty in the sorrel centaur’s voice chilled Valjean to the bone; despite himself, he began to struggle against his bonds after all. “I’m true to you, I swear. Let me speak with the Chief.”

Gloatingly: “Yeah, nice try. He don’t want to see you, not until he can be sure of you. In the meantime, we get to have our fun.”

Valjean shivered to his soul, for he knew all too well what these hardened criminals were likely to consider as amusement. 

The irons and chains were just the start. His torturers followed suit by putting a mundane bridle over his head, with blinders to obstruct his peripheral vision, and a spiked ring for his mouth, so that even crying out would hurt. Then they placed small iron clamps upon his sensitive nipples, and heavy ones over his balls; they coaxed his member into half-hardness only to secure a tight restraint around it, too, so that he would be denied even this reprieve. 

When he was secured to their liking, they set upon him with a switch, which was more humiliating than painful, and then a whip, which opened welts over the scarred skin of his back, and drew blood from the stripes across his vulnerable haunches. They whipped him until he began to weep, silently, around the bit in his mouth, choking back tears so that he wouldn’t rip his tongue against the sharp edges.

“Police spy,” they taunted him. “Tell us why you’re here, and who you’re working for.”

“I’m not working for anyone,” Valjean whispered. “I’m not a spy.”

“Liar. Everything you say are lies!” And the beating commenced again. At one point, one of their strokes caught across Valjean’s balls; the crack of pain was so agonising that Valjean’s consciousness slid away. 

When he struggled back to himself, he found Mardisoir straddling him, working him open with a prick that felt thicker than the arms of the Toulon guards. He groaned in despair, forgetting himself, and the fresh pain in his mouth made him weep again.

His tormentors took turns to have him, one after the other, cruelly jerking him from time to time but keeping him on the edge of relief. They only ceased their efforts when the afternoon sun made its way through the cracks in the outer door, leaving him imprisoned in his bonds, half-delirious with pain and ill-use, to get what little respite he could. 

Valjean drifted off despite himself, rousing only when a bucket of water was thrown over him. Night had fallen, and he found himself fiendishly thirsty, and now hungry to boot. 

“Had time to think over your sins, old-timer?” It was Poussagrive, outlined in moonlight, looking angrier than Valjean had ever seen him.

“Poussagrive, there’s been some mistake —“

“I’ll say, and it seems the mistake was in us trusting you.” Carmagnolet’s deputy entered the cell. He was holding an even larger whip than the others had used last night, his eyes narrowed into merciless slits, and Valjean knew an instant of real fear.

His thoughts, in that moment, were of Cosette, presently left in the care of their sour-tempered Parisian portress; he could only hope she would be cared for upon his death, with no one else who knew of her, let alone who would guard her interests. That was to say: no one save for Javert. 

Perhaps Javert would intervene on Cosette’s behalf, if Valjean were to be killed in Carmagnolet’s underground oubliette? Certainly the inspector would be disappointed if Valjean did not succeed in his mission. Valjean could only hope he would be pleased with the work Valjean had done regardless, and predisposed to take mercy on the daughter of his reluctant agent.

“Come, then,” Poussagrive said, almost mildly. He stroked the line of Valjean’s nose with the whip, with gentle menace. “It might go better for you if you confess. You’ll still be dead, as befits a police spy, but I’ll grant you a quick death if you told us who sent you, and what they know.”

Valjean tried to articulate around the painful bit in his mouth. “No one sent me. You have to believe me, I’m loyal to you.” 

“I wish I could believe that,” Poussagrive murmured, and twisted Valjean’s hair; once more, Valjean had to choke back his cry of pain.

“How can I prove it to you? I’ll do anything.”

Various different hooves clattered down the dungeon stairs, and a deep voice drawled, “Well, that does sound like music to my ears.” It was Carmagnolet, of course, and his entourage. 

They were accompanied by a human man of middling height, wearing an elaborate frock-coat and hat and a silver-topped cane that made him look older than his age. His finery proved a rather better disguise than Jean Valjean’s had been — though there was no disguising the hot eyes and hotter scowl of none other than Inspector Javert himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Javert had never before met the infamous Sieur Carmagnolet, and _this_ was a most unpropitious introduction — dragged into the criminal mastermind’s holding room by two henchpersons and flung to his knees before iron-shod hooves laced with gold.

Carmagnolet was a large, well-dressed centaur, a little older than Jean Valjean, his beard and jet-black coat handsomely streaked with silver. If he had been a mundane stallion, he would be at least eighteen hands tall; as it were, the centaur loomed over Javert with the easy menace of a beast that could have trampled him into the dirt without breaking so much as a sweat.

“What’s this?” Carmagnolet sounded annoyed. “Didn’t I tell you boys I wasn’t to be disturbed? Monsieur, my office hours are over, you’ll need to return tomorrow morning.”

“Calls himself Thierry; he was asking after the Patron-Minette business,” one of the henchmen, a spotted bay, supplied eagerly. “Says he’s thinking about setting up shop on his own, wants to deal with us directly.”

“Really, now,” Carmagnolet said, fixing Javert with an intent blue gaze. Well, at least Javert had gotten the horse-man’s attention. 

Javert rose warily to his feet and dusted off the good wool coat of his disguise. He had, of course, come prepared that he would be intercepted during his reconnoitre of Carmagnolet’s stronghold: he had attired himself in the fine clothes seized from one of the gang leaders recently arrested by the Sûreté, and had armed himself not only with the criminal’s pistols but also with certain codes which would allow him to pass for a member of the underworld.

He had expected to be able convince low-level thugs of his cover story, and to be allowed to leave after ascertaining any clues as to Valjean’s well-being. He hadn’t expected to be taken directly and immediately to Carmagnolet himself.

“His pass-codes check out, Chief,” the other henchman said. “But he’s got an uncommon amount of cash on him. And he was real interested in our gang, for a human. We thought we’d bring him to see you, given what’s just happened with Grey.” 

With some effort, Javert schooled his features to calm. It wouldn’t do to visibly react to what he feared was an allusion to Valjean’s troubles. 

“Look, Monsieur Carmagnolet, Brujon’s crew are getting too big for their boots; I thought we could do business directly. I brought cash to show my bonafides.” 

“How very convenient,” Carmagnolet mused. “But what’s this about you asking after other centaurs? Anyone might think you knew someone in here working for me. Someone who we suspect might be playing a double game.”

So, he’d been right to be concerned: Jean Valjean had somehow been discovered. Javert gritted his teeth and made himself hold the centaur’s suspicious gaze.

“Nonsense,” he said, haughtily. “I don’t know any centaurs here; they’re certainly not working for me.”

Carmagnolet said, with deceptive mildness: “We thought he might be working for the police, not for you. Unless you yourself are also working for the police, Monsieur.” He smiled, and then levelled one of Javert’s own pistols at Javert’s head. “I’ll ask you one more time: why are you so interested in my crew?”

Javert’s nerves were good, but all the same he had to take a deep, steadying breath. This hardened criminal would not be content with a trivial response. He, Javert, had only one opportunity to answer to Carmagnolet’s satisfaction before Carmagnolet shot him, and killed Valjean as well.

He cast about for an explanation, and inspiration struck, in the form of his last conversation with Jean Valjean.

“There’s no need for that, Monsieur, I’ll come clean with you,” he said, letting his voice quiver slightly. “It’s not something a man can speak of right off the bat… But I’d heard that you might have a colt or filly here who’d welcome the attentions of a human for an hour or two, if the price is right. And, well, I’ve always been partial to the thought. It’s another reason for all this cash.”

In actual fact, the money had been drawn from the Sûreté’s grey funds, just in case bribes had needed to be paid; Javert had seen fit to supplement the same with his own personal savings, a move which he now had reason to regret. 

Still, his unexpected account for the surplus funds seemed to delight as well as surprise Carmagnolet, for the centaur threw his handsome head back with a bark of laughter. 

“Ah! It’s true most humans aren’t usually interested in other centaurs, but then there are those of you who are. I’m afraid we don’t have any females on premises, Monsieur Thierry, it makes the fellows sex-crazed, and we can’t have that under my roof.” Still chuckling, he lowered Javert’s pistol and handed it back to the henchman, continuing, in a conversational tone, “Also, if it’s colts you’re after, you’re out of luck. Young Bouquetière broke his leg trying to escape last month, and we had to put him down. I’ve decided we should try to invest in more mature assets — stallions in their prime, who’d be grateful for a bit of fun, and who won’t bolt at the smallest hurdle.” 

Javert knew he was being closely observed; he made himself shrug with equanimity. “A mature male would do as well, Monsieur. After all, I’m no spring chicken myself.” Indeed, all the better to track down Valjean’s whereabouts. 

Carmagnolet laughed again, loud and long. He clapped Javert on the shoulder in a blow that rattled all Javert’s bones.

“Capital. It so happens that we have just the male for you. And since you ask so nicely, why don’t we get to business right away? An hour of your time will cost you six napoleons.”

This would substantially deplete the purse Javert had brought with him. He hoped Vidocq would not be too displeased; as for his own savings, these could be re-accumulated, whereas Valjean’s life would not be easily won back from the brink of death.

Javert found himself smiling fiercely. “This seems fair,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Though he had little reason to continue to trust Valjean, he still hoped against hope that, when the time came, that convict would not give either of them away. 

With the sun beginning to set behind him, Javert was escorted deep into the forest, through a stone maze and then a series of closely-constructed buildings guarded by centaurs with pistols and long pikes. Entering the largest and most fortified structure, they passed iron grills and thick oak doors, descended a flight of stairs, and entered an underground cavern.

The cavern was dim; a barred window at one end let in a long narrow sliver of moonlight, barely enough for human eyes to see by. Javert, though, had particularly sharp vision, almost as sharp as a centaur’s; he had no trouble recognising the nude figure chained in the cell, despite the bridle, the matted silver hair hanging in the prisoner's eyes, and the bloody welts across his back and hind quarters. 

Slowly, Valjean raised his head. His gaze was clouded over with pain, but there was a flash of recognition there as well, that the reluctant spy quickly masked.

“What’s this?” Javert barked out, as other centaurs moved around the room, lighting torches and lamps which were clearly meant for the benefit of the only human present. “Is this some joke?”

He gestured at the cell, maintaining his guise as a customer who did not reasonably expect to have purchased time with this pathetic creature, whom they’d had to chain and bridle like a wild animal and had been whipped to within an inch of his life.

“Not a joke,” Carmagnolet said. He snapped his fingers, and the large bay centaur who had been in the cell with Valjean opened the door; Javert found himself being crowded into the cell towards Valjean.

In the close quarters of the oubliette, Javert could not escape the stink of Valjean’s suffering. The large, powerful body glistened with blood and sweat, and something that was neither blood nor sweat. Tremors ran through his shackled fore- and hind legs and the muscular arms hoisted above his head, but the iron manacles held him fast. Anguish roiled openly across his face; emotions of a different kind warred within Javert as he beheld it, although his own expression could betray none of this.

Carmagnolet repeated, “Not a joke, Monsieur, I can assure you. You have come here on a sexual adventure, had you not? This, clearly, is nothing you have ever experienced before — an undiscovered country.”

Javert summoned outrage to cover his real emotions. “Sieur Carmagnolet, with all due respect — a sexual adventure is one matter, mounting a wild animal is quite another. Look at this brute! Even shackled like this, one good hit with his hindquarters and I might not walk for a week!”

Carmagnolet chuckled. “Come, come, Monsieur Thierry, I had not thought you a cowardly man. See here, this fine brute is not unwilling; he’ll welcome you as sweetly as any young colt would.” 

Abruptly, he addressed himself to Valjean, reaching out to grasp the man’s thatch of curly silver hair and jerking his face into the light. “You’ll do that, won’t you, Grey? You’ll do what you’re told, and be good to this gentleman, won’t you — for me?” 

Valjean gasped quietly, as if the bit in his mouth hurt him. Articulating around it with effort, he choked out, “Yes. I’ve told you all: I’m yours. I haven’t betrayed you. I’m willing. I’ll do whatever you ask.”

Javert had to struggle with the proprietorial wave of anger. Valjean was _his_ man, not Carmagnolet’s. He might profess to belong to Carmagnolet’s gang, but in truth these criminals owned nothing of him, from his proud brow to his silver-tufted hooves. He was the Prefecture’s agent; he belonged to the Sûreté, and to Javert himself.

Carmagnolet patted Valjean’s sweating neck. “There’s a good boy. Eager to please, just the way I like it. How about it, Monsieur Thierry? He says he’s willing; why don’t you let him prove it to you?”

The challenge was plain in those cold blue eyes: Javert, too, was required to prove himself.

For an instant, Javert was seized with the urge to spit in the criminal’s face; to grapple for his pistols, and shoot his way out of this crisis. He shoved the urge away. He was vastly outgunned, and there was Valjean to consider; if he chose to fight, the both of them would never make it out of this oubliette alive.

There was no other way forward.

He felt a savage grin spread over his face. “Well, Monsieur, since you put it that way. I suppose it would be an adventure, at that.”

Carmagnolet whickered appreciatively, and he and his men made room in the cell for the encounter that was about to take place.

Javert took off his fine overcoat and jacket, and slowly folded up his shirtsleeves, aware he was delaying the inevitable. He then placed a tentative hand on Valjean’s flank. Valjean felt hotter than ever underneath his matted coat; as if the muscular body was helpless with fever.

Centaurs had uncommonly sharp hearing, too; yet Javert could not help put place his mouth close to Valjean’s ear and ask, “Are you ready to do this, then?”

“Yes, Monsieur,” Valjean whispered back, bowing his head in defeat. The sight of the proud body helpless in this criminal’s irons sent a surge of rage through Javert, and something else besides: despite himself, Javert knew he was rousing, as he had roused for Valjean in the stables of the Prefecture, when he’d allowed Valjean to demonstrate a reluctant surrender to his authority.

“There’s a step over there, Monsieur,” Carmagnolet’s deputy pointed out; “you might find that would be a more comfortable position.”

Javert dragged the wide, sturdy platform over to Valjean’s rear end, and then leaped up upon it. The man was right: it was a good height for what he was being asked to do.

“What are you waiting for?” the deputy urged, his voice taking on a hard edge, and Javert began to unbutton the flaps of his trousers. 

When he took himself out, he wasn’t surprised to see he had become fully hard, despite the task at hand, or — as he realised, from the way his heart had started to pound in his ears, from the sweat that had sprung up on his brow — in anticipation of it.

Carmagnolet chuckled, deep and low. “That’s a nice club you have there, for a human. You’re a wild one, Monsieur Thierry, just how we like them. Go on, then,” and thus urged, Javert took hold of Valjean’s silver tail and rubbed his fingers across Valjean’s hole.

The first time he had been in this position, Valjean’s body had welcomed him, his hole working open for Javert’s hand and then his arm, with Javert eventually stroking him to completion. On this occasion, they would not be able to afford such luxuries. As Carmagnolet growled, “Take him,” Javert lined himself up, and pushed his way inside.

Valjean groaned, and Javert had to choke back a groan of his own. Valjean’s skin was hot to the touch and his hole felt even hotter; feverish and wet, a far cry from how slack it had been on the last occasion — now, instead, impossibly tight, stretching around Javert’s erection like a taut, silken glove. 

“Name of God,” Javert whispered, grasping at the reins of his own control; he withdrew a little before he pushed back inside, and this time Valjean submitted completely, drawing him in deep and deeper still. He panted quietly as Javert penetrated him, his athletic body heaving in his bonds, its strength and power surrendering entirely to Javert.

Laughter, and some jeering, rose around them: “Get it, get it!” from the bay deputy; “Harder!” from Carmagnolet himself, which made Javert twist his grip even more fiercely on Valjean’s tail. 

Wild centaurs had never suffered humans to ride them, either bareback or saddled, but as Javert mounted Valjean’s rump and thrust savagely into Valjean’s strange heat, he could not help imagining what it would be like, to straddle Valjean’s muscular back and feel all that leashed power between his thighs as the centaur took them into a full gallop across the plains.

Beneath him, Valjean’s sweat-streaked hindquarters quivered urgently; above him, Valjean’s muscular torso and spine bent backwards in a graceful bow, and Javert found himself reaching out and winding his free hand in Valjean’s tangled hair, as Carmagnolet had just done.

Valjean’s head arched back; hampered by the blinders and the bit, Javert could only see a flash of the centaur’s heated gaze. 

_You don’t belong to him,_ Javert opened his mouth to say, fatally, but his words dissolved into formless moans as he found himself coming, spilling his release inside Valjean’s body.

For a moment, the cell walls swam before him; Javert had to lean unsteadily against Valjean’s haunches, struggling to recover his wits. Valjean’s damp coat was soft under his cheek; those silver flanks were trembling almost as badly as Javert’s own, and when Javert looked downwards he could see Valjean had found his own peak without assistance. Thick gouts of release darkened the dungeon floor, Valjean's wet, pink cock hanging from its sheath above it. 

Javert didn’t say _You belong to me_ , but it was a near thing. He risked a last, lingering stroke along Valjean’s rump, before he made himself withdraw.

As he straightened his clothing, the other centaurs crowded into the cell. Carmagnolet stroked Valjean along the haunches in a pleased, proprietorial way that set Javert’s teeth on edge. 

“Nicely done, Grey. Worth every penny this gentleman paid, and as docile as a lamb with it. Who knows, maybe you’re as innocent as you say after all.”

Valjean nodded wearily. Chuckling, the gang leader reached behind Valjean’s head and began to unbuckle the bridle. When the bit was finally removed from his swollen mouth, Valjean managed, “Have I proved myself to you, sir?”

“Yes, I think you have. Besides…” Carmagnolet patted his cheek with chilling gentleness. “You’ve enjoyed yourself with this human, so much so that I have another idea. We could make better use of you as one of our paid whores. What do you say?”

Valjean froze under Carmagnolet’s touch, and Javert felt himself bristle in outrage as well; fortunately, no one was now paying him any attention. 

“Whatever you think best,” Valjean said, at last, and Carmagnolet nodded, approvingly.

“Though I will need your strength beside me for the next meeting with Patron-Minette. Particularly if your new beau is planning on cutting them out of the picture in the near future. Hey, Monsieur Thierry?”

“Let me finalise the figures, and I will return to you with a proper proposal,” Javert said, buttoning up his coat; he desired nothing more than to return with all the men the Sûreté could muster, to burn Carmagnolet and his criminal empire and the entire Bercy Forest to the ground, but he knew that if he bided his time, the police might manage to capture the Patron-Minette as well as Carmagnolet’s gang. 

If he bided his time, and also if Valjean managed to retain the trust of Carmagnolet and his men. Could Valjean keep up the pretence, after all that he had suffered at the hands of the gang and of Javert himself? Javert had no idea if anyone would have enough strength. 

He hesitated at the threshold of the dungeon door and glanced behind him. 

Valjean met his gaze, his dark eyes very steady. 

_You can trust me,_ that look conveyed: the very thing Valjean had promised when they had last been together. 

Javert had trusted him then, and — as he turned and mounted the stairs, leaving Valjean in the dark belly of the beast — he knew there was nothing else for it but to trust Valjean now: to do his best for the Prefecture, and the mission, and perhaps even Javert himself.

**Author's Note:**

> [Centaur](https://www.tor.com/2017/04/03/so-how-does-a-centaur-eat-anyway/#:~:text=The%20Greek%20tradition%20backs%20this,the%20mass%20of%20its%20body) [world-building](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/55663/the-centaur-lets-get-real-shall-we) [research](https://stormwreath.livejournal.com/84030.html) ;)


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